TEXAS: 14 Major Companies Issue Last Minute Letter To Governor Urging Stop To Anti-LGBT Legislation

The Dallas Morning News reports:

The CEOs of 14 top companies, including Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, have sent a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott urging him not to pass discriminatory legislation.

“As large employers in the state, we are gravely concerned that any such legislation would deeply tarnish Texas’ reputation as open and friendly to businesses and families,” the CEOs wrote Abbott in a letter dated May 27. “Our ability to attract, recruit and retain top talent, encourage new business relocations, expansions and investment, and maintain our economic competitiveness would all be negatively affected.

In addition to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook, the letter was signed by Amazon CEO Jeff Wilke, IBM Chairman Ginni Rometty, Microsoft Corp. President Brad Smith and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The leaders of Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Silicon Labs, Celanese Corp., GSD&M, Salesforce and Gearbox Software also signed the letter.

The current legislative session ends tomorrow. If Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick doesn’t call his threatened special session to pass the “bathroom bill,” the legislature will not reconvene until January 2019.